1971

Events

• January 25 - Idi Amin Dada deposes Milton Obote in a successful coup d'etat and declares himself President of Uganda.
• February 7 - A soldier named Robert Curtis is shot dead by the IRA.
• March 12 - Hafez al-Assad declares himself President of Syria.
• March 21 - The 1971 Bangladesh Genocide is initiated by Pakistani dictator Yahya Khan as a means of suppressing Bengali calls for self-determination.
• March 31 - William Calley is sentenced to life in prison for his role in the My Lai Massacre; three days later, President Richard Nixon commutes his sentence to house arrest.
• April 1 - The Fatherland and Liberty Nationalist Front is founded.
• April 25 - The first victim of the Freeway Phantom, 13-year old Carol Denise Spinks, is found murdered behind St. Elizabeths Hospital on a grassy embankment next to the northbound lanes of I-295, about 1,500 feet south of Suitland Parkway in Washington D.C.
• May 3 - Erich Honecker succeeds Walter Ulbricht as General Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany.
• June 10 - The El Halconazo massacre takes place in Mexico City.
• July 23 - William Tolbert is elected President of Liberia.
• August 18 - Hugo Banzer takes power in Bolivia in a successful military coup.
• September 1 - Muammar Gaddafi enters into a political union with Egypt and Syria, known as the Federation of Arab Republics.
• September 30 - The Democratic Unionist Party is founded by Ian Paisley.
• October 27 - Mobutu Sese Seko renames the Democratic Republic of the Congo as the Republic of Zaire.
• November 9 - John List murders his wife, mother, and three children at their home in Westfield, New Jersey, before going on the run.
• November 24 - A man calling himself "D. B. Cooper" hijacks a Boeing 727 aircraft in the northwest United States, in the airspace between Portland, Oregon, and Seattle, Washington, extorting $200,000 in ransom before parachuting off the plane to an unknown fate.
• November 28 - Jordanian Prime Minister Wasfi Tal is assassinated by Black September.
• December 16 - The Bangladesh Genocide comes to an end. Bangladesh formally declares independence from Pakistan.
• December 20 - Yahya Khan resigns as President of Pakistan.
• Unknown - The Japanese Red Army is founded.
• Unknown - Provo Canyon School is founded.
• Unknown - The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord is founded.

Births

Villain births

• January 12 - Alfredo Beltrán Leyva & Peter Madsen
• February 16 - Michael Avenatti
• March 7 - Todd Kohlhepp
• April 21 - Anwar al-Awlaki
• June 4 - Joseph Kabila
• June 27 - Dipendra of Nepal
• July 26 - Kendall Francois
• July 28 - Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
• August 14 - Chris Nelloms
• September 1 - Christina Marie Riggs
• September 26 - Susan Smith
• September 30 - Joshua Blahyi (General Butt Naked)
• November 11 - Wade Michael Page
• December 15 - Tawana Brawley
• December 19 - Amy Locane

Victim births

• January 18 - Junko Furuta
• April 16 - Selena Quintanilla-Perez
• May 10 - Kim Jong-nam
• May 28 - Krista Harrison
• June 16 - Tupac Shakur
• October 8 - Phillip DeVine
• November 5 - Teri Jo Bradish

Deaths

Villain deaths

• February 5 - Mátyás Rákosi
• April 21 - François Duvalier
• May 15 - Billy Reid
• June 28 - Franz Stangl
• August 29 - Nathan Leopold
• September 11 - Nikita Khrushchev
• October 10 - Nardong Putik

Victim deaths

• April 25 - Carol Spinks
• July 8 - Darlenia Denise Johnson
• July 27 - Brenda Faye Crockett
• October 1 - Nenomoshia Yates
• November 9 - Helen, Alma, Patricia, Frederick, and John List, Jr.
• November 15 - Brenda Woodward
• November 28 - Wasfi Tal